Croce Bonaci, a renowned Valletta confectioner and owner of Bonaci Caterers, has died after battling an illness, his family announced on Facebook.
Tributes poured in for the 61-year-old father of two, who worked in the catering industry for 45 years, many hailing him as a kind and generous man.
“With great sorrow our father Croce Bonaci, founder of Bonaci Caterers, passed away peacefully today, surrounded by his loving family,” his son Shawn Bonaci wrote in a Facebook post.
“Forever in our hearts, fly high legend, you will be missed pa.”
Last month during a fundraising marathon for Dar Bjorn 2, members of Bonaci’s family, including his wife Connie as well as his brothers, actor Herman Bonaci and broadcaster Karl Bonaci, spoke about Croce’s struggle as he was diagnosed with a brain tumour that left him paralysed and requiring round the clock medical care.
Connie Bonaci described how her husband began losing sensation in one of his arms, after which a hospital trip revealed that he was battling an aggressive tumour that would eventually paralyse him.
“In the beginning it was very hard, he used to tell me ‘let me die, please give me something so I can die. Look at how I’ve ended up. Can’t you see that i’m suffering’,” Connie recounted tearfully.
“But I always told him, you have something to live for. You have us, you have our children, live for them.”
“Last week he told me, ‘I don’t want to die anymore. I want to live’. And I told him that’s what I want to hear.”
She described the experience of watching her husband deteriorate as painful and that she cried everyday about it.
“I may be made of metal, but even metal rusts,” she said.